Talk about a renewable energy source! Dutch agriculture minister Gerda Verburg unveiled a biomass power plant run exclusively on poultry manure, with a capacity of 36.5 megawatts.

Situated in Moerdijk, the 150 million euro plant was constructed by the Dutch multi-utility company Delta. It will convert roughly 440,000 tons of chicken manure into energy annually, generating more than 270 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year. The plant also addresses a key environmental problem in the Netherlands: “managing the vast excess stream of chicken manure, which, until today, had to be processed at a high cost”.

Delta’s biomass plant has even been described as being carbon neutral, since it will prevent the manure from sitting in fields and seething greenhouse gases into the air. Once methane from the poultry waste has been extracted and ignited, the left over ash will be used to make fertilizers and other agricultural products.

This plan kills two birds with one stone, so to speak, solving the energy problem AND a waste disposal problem. Link -via Digg

They are building one of these plants in Surry County, North Carolina! It was in the local newspaper - The Mount Airy News (mtairynews.com) a few months ago. We have lots of chicken farms in this area. I live in Mount Airy, which is in Surry County.